Media and Power in Modern Iran: Mass Communication, Ideology, and the State

Description

From former President Mohammad Khatami to current President Hassan Rouhani, successive leaders have struggled to navigate the fraught political-cultural space of media in the Islamic Republic of Iran— skirting the lines between embracing the Western communications technologies and ethos, and rejecting them; and between condemning social networking sites as foreign treachery, and promoting themselves on Facebook. How does a regime that derived its hegemony from the ability to mass-communicate its ideology protect its ideological dominance in an environment characterized by “disruptive power” and “mass self-communication”? What is the role of media in the construction of political power in Iran? This book addresses these questions by examining the institutions, policies, and discourses of two political regimes through the course of more than five decades and several communication paradigms. Drawing from over 300 primary sources in Persian and English, including never before used documents from archives in Iran and the United States, is offers a history of Iranian media institutions and strategies across political regimes and media paradigms—from Iran’s first encounter with mass communication in the 1940s, to the dawn of digital media in the 1990s, to internet and mobile telephony today. At the same time, this book trains a keen eye on contemporary politics. With foundations in sociology and political science, The Politics of Media in Iran offers insight into the political communication strategy of the contemporary ruling establishment—a political regime born out of what has become known as the “first televised revolution.” Cover Contents Figures Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Part I Pahlavi and the Making of the mass Communication System Chapter 1 The Birth of the Mass Communication Monopoly Chapter 2 Mass Communication in Revolution and Regime Building Part II A Different Sort of War: The Crisis of Satellite TV Chapter 3 Prelude to a Crisis Chapter 4 The Crisis of Satellite TV Chapter 5 The Big Dish: Direct Broadcast Satellite, Symbolism, and the Politics of Culture Part III Soft War: The Politics of the Internet Chapter 6 Enter the Internet Chapter 7 The 2009 Election Crisis Chapter 8 After the Crisis: Soft War and the ’88 Fitnah Chapter 9 The National Internet Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index